In case you've missed developments there, a story broke last week about a lawsuit alleging that money was funneled to Norm Coleman's wife from a Coleman donor for a no-show job. In this debate, Coleman finally -- for the first time to my reading -- flatly denied the charge.

My pal Al Franken maintains a slim lead there. There is a third-party candidate who's been polling well and taking more from Franken than Coleman. It's often the case in these situations that the third-party person underperforms his polls, as voters get into the booth and think twice about voting for someone who won't win. If that holds here, Franken could get a good chunk of his vote. Also, Bill Clinton is campaigning in Minnesota today, which should help, as should Obama's field operation.

Folks, if you don't live in Minnesota you have no way of knowing this necessarily, but Franken is not going to the Senate to crack jokes and put lampshades on his head at caucus meetings. He's a very smart and serious guy who thought long and hard about this before deciding to undertake it. He knows policy. He'll do the job very well. And Coleman is just a disgrace.

Finally, think of Paul Wellstone, who died in that terrible plane crash six years ago last week. It was really the idea that a superficiality like Coleman now held the seat of a committed and principled fellow like Wellstone that spurred Al to run in the first place.